PHA-Exch> WB: Business and Poverty: Opening markets to the poor (3)

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Abdul Hafeez hafeez at thenetwork.org.pk

In my personal view, there is need to counter the arguments presented by
Prahalad and others- 'helping' the four billion poor people of the world (at
the bottom of the pyramid) by selling products to them (or eradicating
poverty through profits, in the name of corporate social responsibility by
TNCs). Prahalad is not discussing distant possibilities and quite apart from
the financial burden, it is the poor again who pay the social and
environmental cost of this aggressive "bottom-up" sales and marketing
strategy that aims to radically enhance production.  These are completely
ignored by Prahalad and others extolling the virtues of a strategy to
eradicate poverty by "pulling yourselves up by the consumption bootstraps".
There is need to see poor as producers, and emphasizing "top of the pyramid"
to buy from them, rather than selling to them. The new data is clearly
showing this phenomenon  starting to happen in developing countries, for
example Pakistan's industrial and agricultural growth is decreasing day by
day and, on the other side, imports of consumer items is on the increase.

TheNetwork for Consumer Protection
Islamabad-Pakistan.
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